Kerryn Phelps says she won't be a wrecker in Parliament

By Neil McMahon

23 October 2018 — 12:40am

Kerryn Phelps says she is not entering Parliament as a wrecker of a minority Morrison government, telling the ABC’s Q&A on Monday night that a no-confidence motion or other moves to force the government to an early election are not on her agenda if there is action on climate change and asylum seekers.

Phelps was asked by host Tony Jones if there was a “subtle threat” behind her comments that the government had to be given a chance to respond to the message from Wentworth voters on getting asylum seekers off Nauru.

The likely independent victor in the weekend byelection said: “I'd rather work by encouragement. I think the government will be encouraged to take action, as they have done today. With an election looming in May of next year, the government will be judged on its response to this. I don't think it will take a motion of no-confidence to have them act on this. I think the writing is on the wall with this particular issue.”

When the question turned to action on climate change - identified in exit polls as a key issue for Wentworth voters - Phelps said she was inclined to let parliaments run their full term.

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“The first thing you have to do politically - again, I harp back to the fact we have a general federal election coming up in May of 2019 - and that’s not very far away,” she said.

“If the Liberal Party continues along this path of no action plan for climate change, then they will be judged again at the federal election.”

Jones asked: “Do you think they’ll last that long? It’s a key question for a crossbencher, and a new one. Do you think there will be an early election?”

Kerryn Phelps appearing on Q&A on Monday night.Credit:ABC

Phelps replied: “It’s hard to say. I’ve said all along that I think governments should serve their full terms. I think three years is short enough and I believe governments should have the opportunity to serve that full term. So it would not be my intention to trigger anything like a general election sooner than that.

“But I would like to trigger some action by the government to put together an actual action plan.

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“Because just for one thing, the investment community needs to have some security around government policy on renewable energy, to be able to invest money into technology development so that we can have renewable energies that not only provide the power that we need, but can replace old fossil fuel technologies as time goes by.”